Back to school

Happy (shifted) Annunciation! We already celebrated it on March 25, but talked about it a little again this morning. Being able to point to, "it's the Annunciation because in exactly nine months it'll be Christmas!" is just easier for our little kids to connect with than, "they moved the Annunciation this year so that it didn't have to be smushed in with Palm Sunday."

Today was our first school day on my own with three kids, and it went better than I expected. Granted, we only have six school subjects these days and one of them is art, but we were finished with everything except painting before 10:30 am. Plus, in that same time span, I baked a loaf of sourdough bread and made a batch of protein balls (bars sounded like too much work... yes, now that I'm more awake I'm aware that it would have been less work to spread the stuff in a pan than to roll individual balls...) And Otter slept and ate and got changed throughout it all, happy to lay in a sunbeam whenever I needed two hands for something. He did sleep better last night, thankfully! He's been very sleepy this evening, though, so I may be up a lot tonight.

We made a library run this past Saturday, which has helped keep the house peaceful: LB spent a couple of hours happily curled up in a couch corner with a pile of books, and he read to his sister for a while this afternoon so that I could kind of pretend to "sleep while the baby sleeps" with Otter.

Oh, the library reminds me; does anyone happen to have experience with the reading lists from The Good and The Beautiful? I already have two language arts curricula picked out for next year, so I'm not letting myself even look at their whole program, but we've had such a time trying to find books that are appropriate for LB both in terms of reading level and content/emotional maturity level. I liked how, in the sample she offered from the reading list, she gives a quick overview of content as well as educational value and literary value. But I'd love to hear from someone who's actually used it before deciding whether to buy it... Or if anyone has another suggestion for a good reading list, that would be helpful too!

I had been feeling like I ought to make myself wait until we finished this school year before making plans for next year, but I gave up because looking at curriculum is just so much fun. I wouldn't say that we have our curricula set in stone yet, but at this point I think I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be using in the fall. I know that there are a lot of good things about getting a comprehensive curriculum all from one source—that's what my mom has always done—and maybe in the future that'll be the right choice for us, but at this point I'm so grateful to be able to pick and choose from many different vendors to find what works best for LB. It's wonderful that there are so many options! Once I have things set for sure, I'll have to write out our list for next year.